The psychology of sorority recruitment
 

Reading the rush threads makes me want to go back to school and do research on the psychology of sorority recruitment. The possibilities are endless.

800 or 1000 or 1200 women who are all bright, attractive and well-rounded collide for a week. Many of them have never faced significant failure before. Many of them have rarely failed to achieve goals they want. Many of them have not experienced finding out they aren't more special or desirable than the other women around them. How does the entire process impact them, especially those who desire certain chapters and find out those chapters don't think they are a good match?

Related to this is the idea that has come up on GC that PNMs will desire certain chapters because they want to be like the women in that chapter rather than the fact that they would really fit in. The ability to honestly evaluate who you are and where you would fit in well is really a challenge for a lot of young women. Getting your invites back and realizing you aren't really a ABC or DEF can be a major blow to some women's egos. How do women respond? Does she see the truth in it or simply blame the women in the chapter for rejecting her?

Trust the process is something that PNMs hear all the time on GC. The PNMs echo with "every sorority at ABC University has so much to offer"... Until they are dropped from the groups they really want and realize that the sororities that are left that "have so much to offer because every group at ABC University is outstanding" aren't what they envisioned for themselves all summer and all week. It's easy to repeat the mantra when you are "sure" you will end up in one of the most desirable groups. It is completely different when you are faced with your only options being the groups you ranked last all week. Why do some women continue to trust the process and others reject the entire system?

It would be interesting to follow up with the women who drop out and see how much they blame the sorority members and/or the process and how many of them are able to honestly evaluate themselves and recognize that they didn't belong in particular groups they really wanted for whatever reason.

And on the opposite end of the spectrum... How many women receive a boost of confidence because of their recruitment experience and the fact that they make it through the entire process? It would be interesting to know the positive psychological impact of completing recruitment successfully and how that plays out in the rest of the life in college and beyond.

Anyone need a dissertation topic?

I know! That's what I mean. All the time I piddle away reading recruitment stories... I could be getting a degree for this! :D

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8rrIYevONQ


I'm sure this has been discussed on here, but your post reminds me of parts of this (where the one woman talks about the psychology behind it)

Wow:eek:

I hope "Anonymous" gets her membership cancelled, even though apparently it doesn't mean that much to her.

I feel really bad for Allie, being taken advantage of like that. I wonder if she got into trouble after this video debuted. If I were her I would be pretty angry with the director when the video kept mentioning the awful stereotypes of Sorority A and then she pledged Sorority A.

The psychology of Recruitment is pretty interesting. I feel like it takes a lot of guts to go through with it for some girls. Most things in life people tell you to not "take it personally". Well, Rush is personal. THEY DON'T LIKE YOU! THEY LOVE YOU! THEY MADE A POSTER OF YOUR FACE! It can be a huge ego boost or a huge blow.

I think much of getting over a disappointing recruitment is realizing that there is a certain type of girl who does well in rush, and not everyone is that type. Regardless of recs and legacies and pre-existing friendships, the most desired PNM's are generally those who make a great impression in five minutes.

If you listed what you wanted in a sister, you'd list things like "loyalty" or "good listener". If you took a chapter inventory, you may end up with things like "leadership potential" and "financially responsible", but none of those qualities are really ferreted out during recruitment. Many of the women who don't have full schedules could be bristling with all of these things.

If I remember correctly, the 'Anonymous' girl was the former Recruitment Chair for her chapter. She left the chapter (or was asked to leave, I don't know). So, no, she's no longer a member of the organization.

Quite honestly I think the psychology makeup of today's PNM's is different than past ones. I say this because, impo, the PNM's going into recruitment today have the "entitlement" complex.

I see this in elementary school. The "everyone has to get an award" and "everyone has to be recognized". Personally I think it is a crock, because that isn't real life. It's like a football game, one team has to win and one team will lose. It's not a draw.

I think that is the problem with today's PNM's, they are so used to things just being handed to them, because god forbid we "damage" their psyche in school and not let everyone make the cheer team (who tried out).

It wasn't like this in the past. I graduated from high school in 1997 and I didn't make things that I tried out for. Yes it sucked and I was jealous of those who did make it, but that is life.

this is spot-on. I think it is worth a study. I also say the same ideas for people who begin college and realize there are people smarter, cuter, taller, shorter, thinner, fatter, richer, poorer, etc than you. quite a culture shock!!!!

+1

This is what I was alluding to in my first paragraph, but you summed it up very well. The shock of finding out that you aren't extraordinary like you've always thought and been told, but that you are simply "average" in the world of recruitment.

All this is why I started that thread "You'll End Up Where You Were Meant to" many years ago. I don't believe that now any more than I did when I started the thread because I've seen too may inexplicable results.

I live in the land of uber-entitlement and you see it rear its ugly head in all kinds of places, but most negatively on the roads, where young locals think (probably subconsciously) that they are entitled to more of the road than the rest of us. If your car literally won't fit in a lane even when you are perfectly centered, it's too big. And forget parking that behemoth in a parking garage.

By giving your child everything they want in life (says the woman with no kids, so I know more than the rest of you - HA!) you are not doing them any favors. This may be where the average girl - smart enough, cute enough but not super duper anything - can actually succeed in rush and in sorority life where that "best girl" can't. She's never had to except anything less than exactly what she wanted, and isn't prepared to start now. And she will have a diminished experience because of it. That's too bad.

I don't know if this is new or just more apparent in the communication-laden world we now live in, but it SEEMS worse to me than in the past.

I also think there's something to consider about too much attention paid to not hurting a child's self-esteem. Of course we don't want kids growing up depressed and feeling worthless, but isn't failure, disappointment, rejection, all that nasty stuff, part of the growing pains of life? And don't we come out the other end better people for having gone through it? I don't know, but you can add that to the thesis and I'll look forward to reading it. ;)

+1

It is interesting that on the video link someone left a comment that half the women in her chapter were b******. I can honestly say that I cannot recall a single woman in my chapter of a hundred women that I would characterize that way. Yes, some were more high maintenance than others and there were some who might have been more prone to drama. But nothing like what this woman is talking about. But I can think of many I would call loyal, good listeners, leaders, trustworthy and a whole slew of other positive things.

Then again, we were one of those chapters deemed "less desirable" and did not necessarily shine as brightly during formal recruitment. But I would have put the overall quality of our general membership up against the overall quality of the general membership of all the other sororities any day.

See I am not to sure about this. I believe that a lot can be learned in recruitment if the sorority members ask the right questions. Learning about part time jobs in high school and college, learning about leadership in their EC. You can find out about loyalty talking about family or high school friends, empathy in their current and past friendships or even connection to past pets. It's learning how to take the time you have and ask the right questions. I think it also helps you identify the ones who are taking sorority membership seriously. Recruitment shouldn't be treated as the elephant in the room. If sororities take the selection process seriously it will help the PNMs as well.

I think this also helps chapters identify which PNMs are interested in them as well. Someone who rolls her eyes when you ask her about experience volunteering or gives one word answers shows they are not interested in impressing you, while if you focus just on small talk can make it easier for the uninterested PNM so seem more engaged just based on the amount of effort they need to put forth.

You are absolutely spot on with the comment about first impressions. I think that is what is the biggest issue with RFM. A lot of those women your releasing today after round 1 you kept for another look under the old system. I would like to see some other way to release women after round 1 then go to RFM.

I know that some PNMs are able to rank the sororities "with regrets" as a sign that they didn't hate the GLO. It's a shame that sororities can't do the same thing, to make COR easier.

As with most things, RFM was put in place partly because people abused the system. Sororities were inviting back girls they had NO intention of bidding just to cover their butts in case something wild DID happen and they lost all the girls they wanted (it never did) or for bragging rights (we had more people come back to our parties than any other sorority!).

Something had to be done for those girls who were going the whole way through to pref and getting screwed. This isn't just big schools either, it happened at ALL size schools. Yes, it hurts like hell to get released from 9 out of 12 groups, but better to find it out the first day than after a week of falling in love with a group that doesn't even know you're alive.

I think the best solution is for more schools to offer sorority preview weekends so the PNMs can at least put themselves out there.

(Large rush only) If a chapter is so "high octane" that only that type of girl makes it in rush, wouldn't the shy, sensitive girl get lost in the shuffle of the chapter if she DID make it in?

The "entitlement complex" may be worse nowadays, but there have always been girls who were Edie Everything at their teeny weeny high school (sometimes on their own merit, sometimes not) who went to a large university, rushed, and got their butts handed to them on a platter.

This is so true! (Although it was annoying when this kind of girl did make it into a high-octane chapter.)

"Edie Everything"! LOL!

This also damaged other sororities within the system as well. When the stronger chapters aren't cutting that means that the PNMS get to do the dropping. Then, when their big cuts come in they are either left high and dry or with invitations to chapters they haven't been to since the first round. Before RFM was instituted at my campus suicide rates (for bid signing, not the real kind) were extremely high due to one of the struggling chapters inviting girls who had cut them but were invited to their pref as they had only one other chapter inviting them back.

If a chapter invites too many girls back they are also preventing other sororities from sharing their sisterhood with PNMS

I totally agree with the abuse of the system and saw it first hand. What would happen if you started RFM after round 2? You would get a second and longer look at some of those women who don't light up the room when they walk in the door, but still be forced to make heavy releases?

There was a graduate student at my sister's school a few years ago. She went through recruitment purely for the research aspect. She intended to publish something about it, I thought. I don't know whatever happened to her.

The problem is that it goes both ways. Doing RFM after round 2 means that the "top" chapters would do lighter cuts, and PNM's would not necessarily take a look at the chapters that take a little longer to really make an impression.

I think it is less about the numbers game, and more about the attitudes of 18-year-old women, in BOTH directions.

Absolutely. This is one of the challenges a "popular" chapter faces during recruitment in the era of RFM. They essentially have their pick, but because they have to cut so many women early in recruitment, they have to know what they are looking for and how to determine if a PNM has those qualities. If all they're looking for is "cute" and "bubbly" that is their right to choose PNMs that way, but if they want more women with more substance, they must ask the right questions. You have to have all of your members on the same page about wanting certain things in PNMs and educate them how to steer conversations to be productive. Otherwise, you'll have a bunch of your members gushing about PNMs and they can't really give you concrete reasons why they'd be good members.

I do agree that cute girls with bubbly personalities tend to do better in recruitment, though. Social psychologists know that people who are attractive are more likely to be perceived positively, and unattractive people are more likely to be perceived negatively, even if you have an identical conversations. It's ingrained in our brains.

I TOTALLY agree with this, BUT how do you really get to know a young women and ask the right questions in 5 minutes? Maybe the real answer here is to have the first round go a little longer, but I know for a lot of Universities there are major time constraints.

Aren't those major time constraints artificially induced? Isn't it up to the school administration and the Panhellenic council to set the rush schedule? Scheduling it over several weekends instead of over 3-5 days presents other challenges, but presents more opportunity for increased interaction. Those who believe rush must be accomplished before school begins, but choose not to let it go on for two weeks or so, set the constraints.

Different strokes and all that, but the point is that time constraints are a choice.

Doesn't what we were talking about in the networking/who you knew before recruitment kind of take care of this for the top chapters? We kind of advanced the idea that they already had before recruitment a relatively big number of girls who they actually knew well in real life.

If that's the case, will another round of parties really do much more than prolong the inevitable?

ETA: I've found myself wondering if the psychology of guaranteed placement/near guaranteed placement after prefs hurts retention for reasons beyond girls simply being added to the groups they listed last on the bid card. I tend to think, and I think there's some research to back up, that we value things that we think are selective or scare more that things that are easily attainable. Girls who are matched to less selective groups (even if they don't officially know the RFs for each chapter) may not value being selected as much as girls bid by highly selective groups, for that reason alone, even if the experience of being in the groups is fairly comparable (which is sort of unlikely if you are talking about the popularity of social groups, but still)

I wonder if the perception that a lot of girls got dropped completely make everyone else more pleased with her bid.

I know that our chapters are supposed to employ that kind of thing - i.e. we get together and talk it out and decide we want women who have A, B and C quality. "OMG she's so sweet" doesn't cut it. If the worst thing happening to you as a popular chapter is that you actually have to think about this stuff, that's really not that bad of a thing.

It's a lot easier for (using my school as an example) 300 sorority women and 75 rushees to clear their schedules for multiple weekends than it is for (Bama as an example) 3400 sorority women and 1700 rushees.

I'm sure those women would love to have hours and days and weeks to get to know all the rushees inside and out, but they need to get their lives back at some point.

This is good. Especially what you said about prolonging the inevitable...at the first university I went to, rush was delayed until sophomore year. Supposedly that meant more opportunities to interact and each sorority was even allowed a certain number of "rush dates" with each PNM. What happened was that the women you would expect them to want got all the rush dates and at least half the PNMs (as a result of a survey that got Arkansas moving towards freshman recruitment) had absolutely no rush dates at all.

Since it was a bed rush, with less than half of the PNMs receiving bids, the sororities cut down who they wanted to focus on pretty early. It was kind of obvious to the others and resulted in a year's worth of hurt added to the week of hurt they might have had without it. Still, some women soldiered on to their usual release from recruitment.

I agree that networking is vital in the SEC---but not everywhere. I re-watched that Northwestern video and I was writing this from the viewpoint of popular chapters in schools less competitive than the SEC (like private schools with students from around the country or public schools outside the South), where recs are less common, most women may not think about recruitment until the summer after graduation, where each chapter member doesn't already have 5 BFFs each going through recruitment. I apologize for not making this clear.

I would contend the opposite is possible. My chapter was one of the small ones on campus and our retention was very good. The base argument may, however, be similar - maybe these girls are more proud to have gotten into A sorority than the girls who had an easy go through the whole process. I've also wondered who is more likely to stay involved as an alum - the one from that huge chapter or the one from the chapter who struggled year after year? The problem is quantifying "involved."